BOOK OF QUESTS

I

EARTH WORKS

Our four-fathers came from

North and South and East and West

And our mother, and her daughters,

Seven Sisters,

Came from everywhere, I think.

And our one father, from the North,

With hammer and tongs

Arrived with his ships, and his silver,

And they heard his roar from across

            the iron-dark sea.

And our one father, from the South,

Dark father with his herds,

Sang sweet and low, and loud and long;

His pipes played in warm nights and

            White blaring days across deserts.

And our one father, from the West,

Laid the sun to rest,

And sent his air-borne eyes,

His ground-flying friends, all searching,

All searching, until they found, among

Mountains and valleys of soft rain,

Our one father, from the East, sharp father

Who dreamed long of the Moon, and followed,

            And he was here first.

From out the setting sun our red-brown Autumn father

Heard tell and went to join him,

And two together, Moon-Calf and Sun-Chile

Began to build their homes.

And our mother told her daughters once

To wander, over all her lands,

Find flowers they loved and rivers to soothe them

And winds to warm and chill them,

And seas to sing them off to sleep.

And so they tripped and trailed and travelled,

Learned the long slow songs of waning moons in

Winter, learned the short sweet songs of

Passing Spring, gave gentle hands to passing things,

Watched tangles in the roots, and ripples in

The water, learned to turn and help things spin,

Learned to cut, and help each other lie.

There was no way to tell, to cut them from each other,

For each was all her sisters, and her mother.

And their knots bound tighter, and their cuts freed faster

Than any that there were.

And at sunset, their mother called them in,

And at moonrise, their mother cast them out.

            Things turned.

                        And at moonset, their mother called them home

                        And at sunrise, their mother called them home.

They brought soft things, and hard, sweet things, and sour,

            Cold things, and warm.

They brought sad songs, and sweet, still music, and silence,

            Loud drums, low pipes, wild reeds, white wings,

Fleet darts, broad shields, bright paint, black dust,

            White chalk, and all the changing faces of the moon,

Rough winds, and every darling bud, and daring trick.

            And they followed her home, by highway and woodtrail,

By mountain river stream and hill and sea, and

Maybe, one was home first, for she dreamed of Moon and Sun

Over mountains, valleys, islands, bays, in soft rain and gentle light.

Seven sisters, four fathers, all came home,

            By hook and crook, all called home.

With mountains to shield them from Wild Sea’s howl,

With valleys to hollow in, mountains to sing from, see from.

With rivers to swim up, to the source,

            Deep places to delve in, high places to hide in;

Soft places to dig in, hard things to carve out,

            Bright things to bauble, sharp things to kill,

Warm things to wear in, soft suns and rains,

            Grey things, and green.

                                    Devils, angels, and deep blue seas.

But some ones had been there first.

            There were tall trees to shelter and cut from,

Silvermines to flash forth; there was honey, sap rising,

            Things growing, flying, swimming, crawling, leaping.

There were spear-stands of trees, and arrow-roots,

            Berries and dyes, slow swamps and quick lime.

There were serpents in the earth, and apples on the trees.

            There were wild things in forests, tame things in valleys.

There was the Sun, and the Moon, the Sky and Sea.

            There were dams and stag-antlers wider than we

            were long, and lean-tos and hide-aways.

There were earth works.

And in the forests, in the hills, in plains and bogs,

            And roaming on the islands and the cliffs,

And singing on the high wild heights,

            He was there, and she was there, and he was there.

And his sunset always on every living thing,

            And everything they felt and heard and touched and

Tasted with closed eyes was her.

But everything they dreamed, of Sun and Moon and Stars,

He dreamed, still, silent, in the earth works.

II

FIRST TIMES

Under skies glorious and thunderous by turns,

            On the lands both bountiful and bare,

Over sea and under stones,

            O wild as the wind and free as the birds

And supple as reeds and strong as oaks

            We danced.

Wheels within wheels, circling the firelight,

            There danced our family.

Watched by mountains, sheltered by trees,

            Washed by rivers, floated by lakes,

Held up in dams, with all our treasures

            From all the lands held nestled in the earth.

We ran beneath starlight and hunted by moonlight,

            Cured by sunlight, salted by sea air,

Our faces were well-weathered, our hands spun and wound

            the tendrils of our lovers’ hair.

Games were played and gifts given, tricks turned,

            Women opened, men burned.

                        And all for love.

The ground ran with our blood and sweat, as the others,

            Late-comers, washed up on our shores.

But after the flowers of youth were cut for sport,

            We recognized, across those carrion fields,

Our brothers and our sisters, from far and wide,

From the way they held their spears and flashed their eyes,

The way they sang and loved and danced,

            The way they dug in earth works.

Our arms opened to each other, and among our dead,

            We welcomed long lost fathers, sisters, brothers,

Raised cups to our mother, poured drinks over older earth works.